My kids have a tradition of choosing party themes that make it impossible to buy supplies from a store. Weeks before any birthday are spent hand making decorations and goodies. Last year it was Minecraft party bags and Minecraft marshmallow pops. This year it was a Plants Vs Zombies party. This was one of my favorites – the decorations, food and activities were a lot of fun to come up with. Aiden and his friends loved every last bit of it, so the work that went in to making everything was completely worth it. I made a lot of printables for this particular party, and you can grab them for yourself at the bottom of this post!
We started with decorations. I came across these giant sunflowers in a few different sizes and created some sunflower face printables to hot glue to them. Then I bought some terra cotta clay pots and Styrofoam. I cut the Styrofoam to fit into the pot and pushed the flower stems through the center, then I covered it up with kraft crinkle paper. If the flowers are very tall you may need to weigh the pots down. I used some small weights I had laying around, but rocks or any other heavy object small enough to fit inside the pot would work.
Printables:
Sunflower Faces (8″, 5″ and 3″ faces)
I filled the house with these zombie balloons, which were a huge hit and really set the tone for the party. All you need is a bunch of red balloons, a sharpie, hole punch and these printable zombies from Pinwheels And Pompoms. Print and cut the zombies out (this is a little time consuming so plant to do it a day or so ahead of time). Once you have your balloons use the sharpie to draw these faces on, punch a hole in the zombie’s shirt and pull the balloon string through! I used standard cardstock and it didn’t weigh the balloons down at all. The only issue I ran into was realizing that the sharpie can rub off of the balloons and onto kids hands, faces, clothes and furniture. Once the balloons start to deflate you’ll probably want to toss them before the kids start throwing them around.
When our guests walked in they were greeted by a zombie station stocked with gross zombie teeth, construction cone party hats and Hypno Shroom Extract glow sticks. For the hats I just purchased small sport cones and tied elastic to them. You can grab the printable Hypno Shroom Extract signs below.
Printables:
The candy bar was stocked with plenty of plants vs zombies goodies too!
Everyone’s favorite were these zombie marshmallow pops.
They were easy to make, just dip marshmallows in candy coating, I used Wilton Vibrant Green Candy Melts to get this color, and allow them to dry. Then use the same color to affix candy eyes. To make the facial features I melted some dark chocolate and used a toothpick to draw them on. I cut the ties from construction paper and clued them to the sticks. Once I had them set up they reminded me of a final wave of zombies, so I printed out a final wave image to place in front.
The Peashooter Peas were green sixlets.
PRINTABLE:
These sunflower seeds were also part of the party bags, but the adults enjoyed having some to snack on during the party. I created printable toppers to staple on each bag. Just print, fold and staple for a cute snack or party favor!
PRINTABLE:
I filled a bowl with twin cherry gummies for the Cherry Bombs.
PRINTABLE:
Everyone loved these construction cone rice krispie treats. My 8 year old made these, so this is a great way to get the kids involved in party prep. We just made rice krispie treats according to the directions on the cereal box, dyed them with Wilton Orange Decorating Dye (add the dye to the melted marshmallows before adding in the cereal), allowed them to cool slightly, coated our hands with vegetable oil and shaped these cones. Once they are dry add lollipop sticks to them.
I also made these little chocolates from this Plants Vs Zombies silicone mold.
To keep the kids entertained we had a few activities planned. Unfortunately I didn’t get great photos because I was so busy organizing kids, but our first activity was to get the kids outside to plant their own flowers. I purchased pansies from a garden supply store, some soil, a few beach buckets, foam stickers and small terra cotta pots. The kids wrote their names on popsicle sticks so that they would be able to identify their flowers later on, then decorated their pots with foam stickers. Everyone got to pick a pansy for their pot, then filled it the rest of the way with soil. We had a lot of fun and the kids were excited to have their flowers to take home at the end of the day.
Later on we played Plants Vs Zombies bowling, something else I didn’t get photos of!
Once dessert time rolled around we opened up the candy bar and served this amazing (and giant!) Dirt Cake, made by lovely cousin. She put the entire thing into a food safe bucket and served it with a scoop into little plastic flower cups. It looked just like a big scoop of mud and the kids loved it!
The cake was ordered from a local baker who made this enormous, delicious cake.
For party bags I used green kraft bags and tied small metal gardening themed tags to them. I filled them with packages of sunflower seeds, candy and a grow your own brain plant kit to stick with the theme.
Our plants vs zombies party was a huge hit – I’m almost hoping one of the other boys asks for one this year because this was so much fun to put together! What party theme have you really loved putting together?
Hello! What great work you did! Thank you for all of the references. I was wondering if you know where your sister purchased the plastic flower cups. Please let me know as soon as you have a chance. Happy Day to you!
Hi Heather!
Thank you! She found the little plastic flower put cups at party city. They may be a seasonal item there, but the food safe pail was ordered on amazon, and they would most likely have the same cups, or something similar there as well!
Thank you so much for sharing your amazing party and printable! Wondering if you can tell me wher you found the cherry gummies and the brain kit. Also any idea where else I can find the chocolate silicone mold? It’s no longer available on Amazon. Thanks bunches!
You can usually find the cherry gummies at Party City, or you can grab these on amazon. You can also grab the brain mold and the candy mold on amazon from a different seller. Thanks for stopping by, good luck with your party!
Where did you get the zombie teeth? I can’t seem to find any online for a decent price.
These are the ones we used, but you may get a better assortment from Party City or Oriental Trading.
http://tinyurl.com/y8y7huvy
Unfortunately with the time of year they are hard to come by. We did this party in April, so we just went with what Amazon had available since stores weren’t carrying zombie teeth locally!
Hi can you tell me how you made the zombie table note please x
Thank you so much for sharing all these ideas. My son wants a Zombies vs plants party and all your ideas and printable are very helpful !!!